iM 4,1-14,4 iMac 2011, High Sierra and Steam

[Ste_S]

I'm currently enjoying playing Half Life 2 on my 21.5" 2011 iMac. With Steam removing support for High Sierra (and Mojave) from Feb next year, what are my options?

Will using Open Core Legacy Patcher impact on games playing if I use it to upgrade to a newer OS, given my graphics card doesn't support metal?

I do have a M2 Macbook Air, so all is not lost if I can't take the iMac further.

 

[Ste_S]

To answer my own question - I was conservative and went to Monterey via OCLP, just to be safe(r). Took a while to install, but impressed by how well most stuff works. However, Valve haven't updated their own games to support 64bit, so am stuck not being able to play Half Life 2 series, Left 4 Dead series, Portal series; which I had just brought (luckily very cheaply during the sale).

Hopefully they'll update them prior to the 32bit shut off...

 

[TheShortTimer]

I'm currently enjoying playing Half Life 2 on my 21.5" 2011 iMac. With Steam removing support for High Sierra (and Mojave) from Feb next year, what are my options?

Ah, I wasn't aware of this. I use Steam on two Macs - running High Sierra and Catalina respectively. For those of us unwilling or unable to upgrade, I suppose the Steam launcher will still run and we'll be able to play the existing games that we've purchased but newer will be unavailable. This is a strange and disappointing decision given that there are Mac titles on offer with requirements as low as Lion!

To answer my own question - I was conservative and went to Monterey via OCLP, just to be safe(r). Took a while to install, but impressed by how well most stuff works.

That's great news!

However, Valve haven't updated their own games to support 64bit, so am stuck not being able to play Half Life 2 series, Left 4 Dead series, Portal series; which I had just brought (luckily very cheaply during the sale).

Hopefully they'll update them prior to the 32bit shut off...

You could set up a dual boot and play that stuff under High Sierra...

 

[Ste_S]

Does dual booting work ok with OCLP? I think I read somewhere it interferes with it? I could, of course, be mistaken…

 

[Ste_S]

I've done further reading on dual booting with OCLP and it seems somewhat involved. If anyone has a simple solution to it, please share!

In the meantime, I've been trialling Crossover, which generates a Windows 10 bottle on macOS to enable you to run Windows software. Steam and Half-Life 2, whilst not quite as good as running natively on High Sierra, are actually pretty playable. Not bad for Windows running in an app on a patched macOS that doesn't natively support non-metal GPUs without the patch.